Apparently, John Bellinger has confirmed that although the Red Cross has access to all prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, it does not have access to other prisoners held in similar circumstances.

I have to say that this troubles me deeply. One (speculative) conclusion could be that we (I use we as, although I'm British, you can bet that Blair has knowledge of this at the very least), are using torture on prisoners held overseas. If so, is it a victory for terrorists if we are transported from a rational, civilised people who offer dignity and rehabilitation to offenders, into those who would torture and abuse in 21st century gulags?

Originally posted by DrDirtAside from your concerns, which I mostly agree with, the aspect about torture that confuses me the most is that much of the intel gathered is suspect.

The other aspect that is troubling is that this whole issue provides so much fodder for our enemies

(edited by DrDirt on 9.12.05 0636)

Indeed. Beat me long enough and I'll tell you a horse is a chicken. There are such suspicions over the veracity of information gathered using torture, that the UK House of Lords has recently declared evidence gathered this way inadmissible in court.

You know, if we're really this unconcerned with international reaction or any of that, why don't we just shoot the whole lot of them? Would free up the resources at Guantanamo, and if you're of the opinion that the world can go screw itself, this shouldn't be any different. After all, they are all terrorists according to the Bush administration, so they're guilty without trial or anything like that.

I just wish we would pick one way or the other. If we truly want to wage war, and are going to be bad-ass and tell the world to piss off, then let's do it. Start bringing the wrath of God down upon anyone in our way. Want to scare some possible terrorists, put a bullet in every head at Gitmo and then dump them in the middle of Baghdad. Right now we're just bad-ass enough to be John Wayne until we see someone who kind of scares us *cough*Iran*cough* and then we suddenly go to the negotiating table and let Europe talk for years on end.

We are not going to ever win the PR war as long as we are doign things like this, so why let artificially created impediments on our tactics hamstring us? Obviously I would prefer we actually try not to piss off the entire world on a daily basis, but if we're going to do it, I'd rather actually give them all something to be really pissed about.

Originally posted by skorpio17Torture is a necessary evil. Just watch an episode of 24.

You're kidding, right? If you are going to cite an episode of a fictional show as evidence for an argument, then I will say you should watch the Jon Stewart interview of John McCain on an episode of the Daily Show about a month ago, which happened shortly after McCain spearheaded the vote on the torture bill. They both specifically said that while 24 makes for good television, it is not representative of how torture is beneficial to our country.

Now, understand that I'm not saying I'm against torture in extreme cases. I just don't think that 24 is really what the argument should be hinged upon.

Originally posted by skorpio17Torture is a necessary evil. Just watch an episode of 24.

You're kidding, right? If you are going to cite an episode of a fictional show as evidence for an argument, then I will say you should watch the Jon Stewart interview of John McCain on an episode of the Daily Show about a month ago, which happened shortly after McCain spearheaded the vote on the torture bill. They both specifically said that while 24 makes for good television, it is not representative of how torture is beneficial to our country.

Now, understand that I'm not saying I'm against torture in extreme cases. I just don't think that 24 is really what the argument should be hinged upon.

How do you not torture a Said Ali? He knows where the bomb is! If that doesn't work, you torture his family and kill his sons until he talks.

Though a terrorist refusing to reveal a nuclear(sp.-W) bomb may be an extreme case, I don't believe the McCain bill makes any exceptions for torture even in the extreme cases you seem to support.

Today Bush backtracked to support the feel-good McCain bill anyway. Now the terrorists can't even be "degraded" whatever their lawyers should decide that to mean.